1 Corinthians
Chapter 3
Overview
Paul addresses the Christian community in Corinth, where admiration for different teachers has hardened into rival camps. He treats their quarrels as a sign of spiritual immaturity, comparing them first to babies who still need milk. Then he changes pictures: teachers are farmworkers, the community is God’s field and building, and Jesus the Messiah is its only foundation. Paul warns that every builder’s work will be tested, reminds them that together they are God’s temple, and turns worldly status upside down: their leaders exist for them, not the other way around.
1Brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as people guided by God’s Spirit. I had to speak to you as people still ruled by ordinary human impulses—as infants in your life with the Messiah.
2I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. Even now you are still not ready,
3because you are still ruled by ordinary human impulses. When there is jealousy and conflict among you, doesn’t that show that you are living like everyone else?
4When one person says, “I belong to Paul,” and another says, “I belong to Apollos,” aren’t you behaving in a merely human way?
5What, then, is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you came to believe. Each carried out the task the Lord gave him.
6I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow.
7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is what matters. God, who makes things grow, is what matters.
8The one who plants and the one who waters are united in their work. Each will receive a reward according to their own labor.
9Apollos and I work together for God. You are God’s field and God’s building.
10Because God kindly enabled me, I laid a foundation like a skilled master builder, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must be careful how they build.
11No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus the Messiah.
12Someone may build on that foundation with gold, silver, valuable stones, wood, dry grass, or straw.
13Each person’s work will become visible. The day of judgment will expose it, because that day will appear with fire. The fire itself will test the quality of each person’s work.
14If what someone built survives, that person will receive a reward.
15If someone’s work burns up, that person will suffer loss. The builder will still be saved, but only like someone escaping through fire.
16Don’t you know that all of you together are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives among you?
17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. God’s temple is sacred, and all of you together are that temple.
18No one should deceive themselves. If anyone among you thinks they are wise by the standards of this age, they must become a fool so that they can become wise.
19This world’s wisdom is foolishness in God’s sight. Scripture says, “He catches the wise in their own clever schemes.”
20It also says, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are useless.”
21So no one should boast about human leaders. Everything belongs to you:
22Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, and the future—all belong to you.
23You belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God.